VOORHEES, N.J.— Despite his team’s dramatic move in the standings since their rapid early fall, general manager Paul Holmgren acted quickly to try to shore up a most obvious team shortcoming — the Flyers’ lack of calm in their defensive zone.

In Andrew MacDonald, the Flyers might have a defenseman who not only knows how to rifle a puck out of trouble, but actually skate it out of his defensive zone on occasion without incurring a rink-wide panic.

The Flyers Tuesday traded a third-round pick in the June draft, a second-round pick in 2015 and lightly regarded minor-leaguer Matt Mangene for MacDonald, who at 27 is a mobile defenseman still developing his game. He was paired with Mark Streit for the better part of three seasons on Long Island, and perhaps Holmgren saw this as a potential case of familiarity breeding competence.

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“He’s a good, all-around defenseman,” Streit said via a conference call Tuesday night. “He plays really well defensively and blocks a lot of shots and has a really good first pass, and obviously he’s got some offense as well.”

“It’s a really good mix.”

MacDonald also has an expiring contract. A pending restricted free agent, he only brings a $575,000 cap hit and should help give the defense a bit of a (literal) push (up) the ice. Expect Holmgren, who declined comment on the deal, to try to give MacDonald a push with a nice contract extension sooner rather than later.

According to a report in Newsday, MacDonald may be seeking as much as $5 million per season on his next contract. The Isles weren’t going to do that.

“Everyone was really looking forward to this season after the way we finished last year. But things didn’t go the way we wanted and this seems to be a by-product of that,” MacDonald told Newsday before he left his team in Winnipeg Tuesday afternoon. “It’s kind of mixed emotions right now. I’m sad to leave but excited for what’s coming next.”

Holmgren offered only a one-line text take, stating MacDonald, “is a solid two-way defenseman who brings us depth and experience.”

MacDonald has four goals and 20 assists in 63 games for the Islanders this season, and was a somewhat worrisome minus-19. That was seen as more of a product of an Islanders team that was struggling from the net on out this season. On the plus-side, he leads the NHL in blocked shots with 198. His closest competitor in that category, Montreal’s Josh Gorges, has 171.

MacDonald also is ranked eighth in the league in on-ice time, averaging 25 minutes, 25 seconds per game for the Islanders, who in that area really missed their former captain who pursued greater financial reward in the offseason, one Mark Streit.

When he caught wind of the trade Tuesday, Streit said he texted his former partner and welcomed him to the team. MacDonald was at the Winnipeg airport then, waiting on a flight to Philadelphia. He is expected to be available for Wednesday’s home game against the Washington Capitals.

“Great guy in the (locker) room,” Streit said of MacDonald. “He wants to win and he competes every night, as I said before he’s going to make our team better.”

MacDonald was a sixth-round selection in the 2006 draft and worked his way through the minors before spending all of the past three seasons and most of the 2009-10 campaign with the big club. In 295 career games with the Islanders, MacDonald had 17 goals and 72 assists for 89 points.

“He’s still a young player, and it’s the first time for him to be traded,” Streit said, “...but he’s really excited to be a Flyer.”

Surely not as thrilled are a couple of other Flyers defenders who were battling for ice time before this move, Andrej Meszaros and Erik Gustafsson. Lately it’s been Meszaros who had been getting the bulk of ice time out of those two frequently alternating defenders. But at 28, Meszaros is three years older than Gustafsson, comes at a much heftier $4 million cap hit ... and Meszaros is a pending unrestricted free agent, too.

You’d think he already had plenty of reason to ponder the looming trade deadline of Wednesday at 3 p.m. Now a Mez move seems inevitable.

“I don’t care about tomorrow,” Meszaros said after an early Tuesday practice at the Skate Zone. “Whatever happens, happens; it’s out of your hands and it’s a business thing. But it’s going to be interesting.”

Asked if he thought he had a reason to be nervous about the deadline, Meszaros added, “Not for me. When I was younger, I kind of got nervous (on deadline day) because I didn’t want to leave. But now, once you get older, you understand the business and how it works. You’re not thinking about it and you go day by day and see what happens.”

It’s a fair expectation that by mid-afternoon, Meszaros would likely be looking at travel plans. Holmgren is believed to have shopped him for quite some time to little interest, though in recent days there have been reports Boston was giving Meszaros a close look as a replacement for the injured Dennis Seidenberg.

“You always hear rumors and stuff like that,” Meszaros said. “So as long as it’s not official, you don’t care about it.”

With MacDonald joining a club that alternates two defenders and daily practice presence Hal Gill, however, the Flyers have nine defensemen on their roster. That’s essentially two too many.

Of course, there have been seasons in which defensive injuries have left them depleted beyond repair. Yet the level of chaos in their defensive zone makes you think that while the MacDonald addition helps, it’s certainly no cure.

“I thought we have a pretty good D corps that’s been playing pretty well,” Streit said. “A guy like him, there’s not a lot of guys out there with his skill set. ... He’s overall pretty good, and he can kill penalties and play on the power play and he’s a great puck mover, and great skater. It’s a good combination.

“I think whenever you have the chance to make your team better, you want to do that.”